


Where I Stood

by Missy



Category: Legends of the Fall (1994)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death Fix, Different Character Dies, Dream Visitations, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Ghosts, Magical Realism, Yuletide Madness, Yuletide Treat, parenting, rivals turned friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 00:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Fates diverge, Susannah learns to be a mother, and Isabel - slowly but surely - gives her grudging respect.





	Where I Stood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



Susannah was trying. 

She was almost desperately trying, completely aware that she wasn’t the instinctual, automatically all-knowing mother that she dreamed she’d be when she set eyes on Tristan so many years ago, weeping his beautiful eyes out at Samuel’s grave. Her long-dead fiancé’s namesake looked at her as if she was the enemy, and Little Isabel (they could not force themselves to call her Isabel Three) screamed when she Susannah touched her. Tristan – with his vengeance slaked – applied himself well to fatherhood, but he couldn’t always be there. 

He hadn’t, she realized, been present and in the moment since Samuel’s death. Even less so now that Alfred had joined him in the graveyard, a bullet piercing his back, dead in the name of Tristan’s revenge.

 

***

She started dreaming of Isabel in the middle of a long summer drought. Prohibition was over, and the streets run thick with rum and bourbon, and everyone tries to ignore a drought that’s only getting worse. In the middle of all of this, Susannah fell face-first into a sleep that was deep and true. 

And she dreamed of Isabel.

She’s just as young and beautiful as she was the day she died, though somehow more wise, more self-assured. 

“Now you know,” Isabel said. It was simple and quietly authoritative. 

Susannah shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“You wanted me to die,” Isabel said. “And I did. So now you’re going to get everything you wanted. Tristan and children and my life. But it’s never going to be the way you wanted it to be.”

Susannah's hackles rose. “I’m only doing what I can with what I've been given, how can you expect…”

“I don’t expect anything from you,” she said flatly. “Except to fight. Fight for your life, Susannah Fincannon.”

Susannah woke in a drenching sweat, with Tristan’s arm weighing her down.

 

***

 

She got better at it as she went along. First she stopped taking Samuel’s guff, and found that the more often she spoke to him with kind firmness, the better he responded. Slowly, little Isabel accepted her presence. Tristan began to spend more time at home, trying to keep his father’s spirit up. He was more attentive to Susannah. 

Isabel came to Susannah again at the height of summer, as the fields began to dry and the cattle sickened. This time they were together in a lush green field, and Susannah was braiding together an endless daisy chain.

The floral scent that accompanied the girl – green and bright – made Susannah wince. 

“You’re learning,” said Isabel. 

The approval made Susannah smile. “I had a fine example,” she said, the old bile of jealousy receding from her throat.

“Don’t lie, Susannah,” said Isabel.

“I’m not. Even when I hated you and wished you’d die…I knew that you were a good mother.”

Isabel said nothing. But the slightest of smiles crossed her face.

 

*** 

Susannah woke with a start in the middle of the morning with the scent of coffee wafting through the air. She leaned into Tristan’s morning kiss, relieved to feel him nearby. 

When he left, she rose.

 

She had just finished getting breakfast together for the children when she caught the scent of something sweet in the wind. Without thinking she left the children and their breakfast behind and ran out the back door, to stare into the vast lands so familiar – and for months so barren.

She fell back with a gasp. 

In the middle of the drought, the field was full of waving, green-stemmed daisies.


End file.
